This invention relates in general to the baking and vending of a food product and, more specifically, to a system for preparing preformed, uncooked dough product units, storing them, baking them as needed and delivering them to a purchaser in a vending machine.
A very wide variety of products are provided to consumers through vending machines. These range from soft drinks and prepackaged food products to various non-edible items. Prepared, packaged, candy, cookies and other snack items are generally vended at room temperature and contain preservatives and the like to prevent spoilage. Food items that are preferably eaten warm, such as pizza or hamburger sandwiches, are generally vended in a refrigerated state to protect against spoilage, with a nearby microwave oven provided so that the consumer can heat the items. While generally acceptable, these items do not have the desirable, fresh-baked or freshly cooked flavor and absence of preservatives that most consumers prefer.
Many attempts have been made to provide vending machines that cook, or at least heat, food products being vended. Typical of these is the sandwich heating and vending device disclosed by Rostonski in U.S. Pat. No. 3,651,752, which uses an electrical current passed through the packaged sandwich to heat the sandwich by resistance heating. Rubino describes a vending machine in U.S. Pat. No. 3,534,676 that passes a prepackaged meal through a microwave oven just prior to vending. The machine of Miller as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,520,249 toasts buns by passing them past a heater just prior to vending. A complex apparatus for cooking a hamburger patty and inserting it between two halves of a bun is described by Cresson in U.S. Pat. No. 4,944,218. Foods in sealed packets are heated and dispensed from the packets in the apparatus described by Simjian in U.S. Pat. 3,340,789.
While having varying effectiveness in cooking or heating and dispensing various different types of food, all of these devices and vending methods are complex, require many sequential operations and would have difficulty maintaining sanitary conditions throughout there process. None shows an entire system for preparing the packaged food product in a way that permits simple and rapid cooking and vending. The prior art systems are not optimized for the baking of dough based products, such as cookies.
Thus, despite the great number of vending machines that have been developed, there remains a continuing need for improved methods and apparatus for packaging, storing, baking and dispensing food products in plural individual product units, in a simple, sanitary and efficient manner.